The use of a mere dozen nuclear weapons ... would be a human catastrophe without parallel. ... Because so few weapons can kill so many people, even far-reaching disarmament proposals would leave us implicated in plans for unprecedented slaughter of innocent people. The sole measure that can free us from this burden is abolition.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the catastrophic potential of nuclear weapons and the necessity for their abolition to prevent mass destruction.
Jonathan Schell's quote highlights the devastating impact that a limited number of nuclear weapons can have on humanity, describing their potential to cause unparalleled human suffering. He argues that proposals for disarmament, while well-intentioned, still leave the world at risk of unimaginable violence. The only true path to eliminate this risk is the complete abolition of nuclear weapons, which would liberate humanity from the fear and moral burden of such destructive capabilities.
In practice
This quote can be used in a speech at a peace rally to highlight the dangers of nuclear warfare.
[A] new generation, innocent of the divisions of the Cold War, this coming-of-age. ... If its members do not feel the urgency to escape the nuclear danger that some of its parents felt, neither has it developed the deep attachment to nuclear arms also often found among their parents, including most of the governing class. ... The call for abolition should therefore be, among other things, a call from an older generation to younger one.
The only place where poverty should be is in museums.
The older I grow and the more I abandon myself to God's will, the less I value intelligence that wants to know and will that wants to do; and as the only element of salvation I recognize faith, which can wait patiently, without asking too many questions.
I'd woken up early, and I took a long time getting ready to exist.
Time has no divisions to mark its passage, there is never a thunder-storm or blare of trumpets to announce the beginning of a new month or year. Even when a new century begins it is only we mortals who ring bells and fire off pistols.
This is the first time in my 32 years in public broadcasting that PBS has ordered up programs for ideological instead of journalistic reasons.
The lessons of the First Amendment are as urgent in the modern world as the 18th Century when it was written. One timeless lesson is that if citizens are subjected to state-sponsored religious exercises, the State disavows its own duty to guard and respect that sphere of inviolable conscience and belief which is the mark of a free people.
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